A Timely Vision

POISONED PETALS

PERFECT POISON

A CORPSE FOR YEW

Renaissance Faire Mysteries

WICKED WEAVES

GHASTLY GLASS

Missing Pieces Mysteries

A TIMELY VISION

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce Lavene and Jim Lavene.

All rights reserved.

We want to thank our loving and supportive family,

who daily put up with us having conversations

about killing people. We love you all!

Joyce and Jim (Mom and Dad)

Chapter 1

It was right after the Fourth of July parade that follows the crowning of the new Miss Duck when Mildred Mason tapped me on the shoulder and sighed. I knew that sigh. It meant she’d lost something again. Usually, it was her purse or house keys. Nothing of earthshaking proportions to anyone else, but something important to her.

“Miss Mildred!” I pretended I hadn’t seen the town’s oldest citizen behind me on the boardwalk. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m missing something real important, Dae. I was hoping you could help me find it. You’ve always been so good at finding things that are lost. I remember when your mama was alive, bless her soul. She was always so proud of your gift.”

I didn’t mind Miss Mildred reminiscing about the past usually, but the hot July sun was beating down on us. I was wearing a heavy, old-fashioned coat that was a gift from the town to their first mayor since incorporation in 2002. It was hot and uncomfortable, not to mention tacky. Covered with red sashes and gold medallions, it was kind of something our pirate forefathers might have worn. Exactly what every mayor needed in ninety-eight-degree weather.

“Let’s step inside.” I invited her into my shop, Missing Pieces, as I grabbed two packages left out on the boardwalk for me. I’d recently become the sole agent for UPS in Duck. “I think I have some lemonade in the refrigerator. Would you like some?”

Miss Mildred wandered in as she always did, taking a few minutes to look around. I think she liked looking at the odds and ends that filled the thrift shop, even though she didn’t come to visit very often. “No, thanks, dear. But you go right ahead. I love this shop, you know. It reminds me of people and places that are gone forever.”

She admired a heart-shaped pin I’d found the day before, at a spot right off the edge of the boardwalk where it led into the Currituck Sound. The sunlight had glinted off of it as I’d walked by. It was fashioned from pink rhinestones. It took me an hour to get it cleaned up, but it was in good shape after being out there in the mud and sand for who knew how long.

Something about it told me it was an important find. I didn’t know why yet, but my instinct for that kind of thing was never wrong. Sometimes it took me a while, years for some items, to figure it out. But I had time. It wasn’t going anywhere.

I removed the heavy wool coat, revealing my white shorts and a patriotic red, white and blue tank top as she rambled on about her life. She could be a cantankerous old lady, but her many contributions to various charities around town had earned her a soft spot in everyone’s hearts. She’d taught school here for many years, which meant at least half of the people still alive had her for one grade or another. They all remembered her as strict but fair.

She lived on the land her ancestors had settled some two hundred or so years ago. Miss Mildred traced her lineage back to a French pirate who’d sailed the Caribbean but decided to settle down on the narrow island that eventually became known as the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Duck is at the northern end of that hundred-mile strip of land.

“You should let Althea at the library record all those things you remember,” I told her as I poured a glass of lemonade. “All that history is part of this area.”

“I know,” she said, as she always did. “I will someday, when I get old.”

There was no convincing Miss Mildred that being ninety-two made her old. I thought about it when I was sixteen, never said anything, of course, and finally stopped thinking about it altogether at twenty-five. She didn’t see herself that way. Who was I to argue the point? Besides, since I’d turned thirty, I’d begun to understand what she meant.

I tossed back half of the lemonade in a single thirsty gulp and went to join her. “Let’s sit down, Miss Mildred. What are you looking for?”

We sat down on the old burgundy brocade sofa that had occupied too much space in the shop for too long. I should’ve gotten rid of it years before, but it was such a cozy place to sit and talk. Keeping it meant I had to occasionally put up shelves around it to hold extra merchandise that came my way, but I didn’t mind. I couldn’t bear to part with it.

“I’m looking for my mother’s watch. I loaned it to my sister, Lizzie, last week. I’ve called her, but there’s no answer.” Her prim little mouth drew up even further. A wealth of cobweb-fine lines spun out along her face. “You know how she is, Dae.”

I knew how Miss Mildred thought Miss Elizabeth was: irresponsible, reckless, careless.

“She’s irresponsible, reckless. She’s always been careless.” Miss Mildred listed her younger sister’s faults.

I would’ve asked why she’d loaned the watch to her if she felt that way, but I’d known the two of them all of my life. They’d been arguing since the day Miss Elizabeth took Johnny Simpson away from Miss Mildred in high school.

My grandparents had told me the sisters were never friends again after that even though Miss Mildred had married Frank Mason and done quite well for herself. Wild Johnny Simpson had left Miss Elizabeth crying and alone for the rest of her life. She never remarried, and Miss Mildred never forgave her.

So I didn’t ask. I sipped my lemonade and let her run through the gamut of Miss Elizabeth’s faults and